TWIN FALLS — If there’s one thing water users can agree on, it’s there isn’t enough water to go around.

Many players in an issue with more sides than a cut diamond — politicians, farmers, domestic water users and other interested parties — voiced concerns about the Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer on Wednesday at a public meeting attended by more than 50 people in the KMVT Community Room in Twin Falls.

The meeting was held to gather input for an aquifer management plan the Idaho Water Resource Board will present to the Idaho Legislature next session.

The IWRB heard loud and clear that it won’t please everyone when it submits the plan.

At stake is how the aquifer — which supplies water for ground- and surface-water users alike, including municipalities — will be managed after years of declining water availability. Many speakers at the meeting voiced concerns, few offered solutions.

The 2006 Legislature instructed the IWRB to formulate a long-term plan for aquifer use. But no matter what that plan entails, water groups — either surface water or groundwater users — are likely to be angry.

The Lake Erie-size aquifer has been a source of contention between water groups for nearly 30 years. Many fear that any plan the board submits will entail curtailments.

To date, the board has solicited input from over 90 groups and agencies, including ground- and surface-water users, state and federal agencies, water-dependent industries and environment and wildlife groups.

It’s farmers, though, who voiced their concerns the loudest.

“However, (the aquifer is managed) I want my senior water rights delivered before the junior rights-holders get theirs,” said Mike Bulkley, a fourth-generation surface-water farmer from Castleford. “To me it’s pretty simple, but I’m just a simple farmer.”

Groundwater users, who are largely junior-rights holders, disagreed. Richard Blincoe, who uses both surface water and groundwater on his farm near Heyburn, said any management plan that relies on prior appropriations, the doctrine that the first users in time are the first to get water, will inevitably shut some users down. And that could lead to economic disaster.

The IWRB will submit its plan to the Legislature after gathering public input at meetings held Oct. 11 in Pocatello, Wednesday evening in Twin Falls and tonight in Idaho Falls. Another round of public-input meetings is slated for December.

In addition to the management plan, the board will offer funding recommendations and suggest a fee structure.

Many at the meeting said the state should be the primary funder in any management plan. “The state got us into this mess,” said Wendell resident Bob Muffley, also a ground- and surface-water user. “They can get us the hell out.”

Times-News staff writer Matt Christensen covers natural resources. Contact him at 735-3243 or at matt.christensen@lee.net.